The board of directors of Intesa Sanpaolo, as expected, suspends the dividend distribution proposal, aligning with the recommendations of the ECB. The profit for the 2019 financial year will be allocated to reserves. Intesa also informs that, compatibly with the ECB's indications and with the "monitoring of the group's capital solidity in relation to the evolution of the context following the Covid-19 epidemic", it intends "to convene an ordinary meeting after XNUMX October to implement the distribution of part of the reserves to shareholders by the end of the 2020 financial year, also in consideration of the support for the financial situation of families and for disbursements from foundations which is particularly necessary in the context following the Covid-19 epidemic ".
In the next few hours it will be the turn of the boards of directors Bpm bank e Ubi decide if and how to harvest last Friday's recommendation from the ECB's Supervisory Board (and of the Bank of Italy for the smaller banks) of suspend and postpone the distribution of dividends and buyback operations at least until October.
But yesterday the first yeses to the ECB arrived with the decisions of Unicredit, General Bank e Banca Mediolanum to slip the coupons.
The banks find themselves between two fires: on the one hand, the solicitation not only of the ECB and the Bank of Italy but of the same health and economic emergency to allocate all possible credit to businesses, households and the real economy, threatened by a deep recession, and on the other hand the commitments previously announced to shareholders for the usual distribution of coupons. Deferring dividends is not painless and it has been seen yesterday on the stock exchange, when bank stocks – and in particular those of Unicredit (-7,4%) and Intesa Sanpaolo (-6,12%) – suffered heavy losses.
Naturally the postponement of the coupons to the autumn rather than their cancellation for now it is an act of hope: for the distribution of dividends to truly return to normal, it will be necessary to see clearly on the economic prospects, which for now are announced to be very black. But if it is certain that there will be a recession in the first part of the year, it will be necessary to understand whether a rebound will come after the summer or, at least, the first signs of a slow recovery.
Meanwhile, in addition to the banks, insurance too they have to face the same problem afterwards yesterday's request from IVASS to the companies to postpone the distribution of dividends. In the next few days the main insurance companies, starting with Generali, will pronounce themselves on the matter.
(Last update: 13.15 pm on 31 March).
